


Waiting for Delight

by DesertVixen



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: F/M, Not Canon Uncompliant, To Dream In The City of Sorrows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28995918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: Jeffrey Sinclair/Valen hopes to find Catherine Sakai in the past.
Relationships: Catherine Sakai/Jeffrey Sinclair
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2020





	Waiting for Delight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/gifts).



He still hadn’t told Marcus – or any of them – the whole truth, the soul truth. He had to be the one to take the station back because he always had been, but there was another reason.

Catherine.

He had to believe that he would find her in the past. Jeffrey Sinclair still hadn’t rid himself of the faint suspicion that Catherine had always been an intended sacrifice, a hoped-for sacrifice. She had been an inconvenient reminder that Sinclair had a life beyond Minbar, beyond being Anla’Shok Na or Entil’zha. Rathenn had failed to warn them because he had not thought they would make a time jump. 

He wondered what Rathenn or Ulkesh would have said if they knew he had switched stabilizers with her.

Catherine.

He had to believe that she had survived and that somehow, they would find each other. 

Becoming Valen, bringing Babylon 4 back in time to help the Minbari win their war against the Shadows – Sinclair had accepted that was his destiny. The note from himself, in his own handwriting, in terms that he would have used, had cemented that belief. But one line in particular gave him hope, a reference to sailing beyond the sunset together, an echo of a conversation he’d had with Catherine when she teased him about Ulysses.

He would live out his destiny – become Valen, fill his prescribed role - but Jeffrey Sinclair was determined not to lose himself entirely. 

He thought of the conversation he’d had with Marcus, before he’d known what he would be asked to do, and how there was very little written on what brought Valen delight.

Now he knew why. Catherine was his delight.

He would find her.

*** 

He was grateful that he had spent all the time reading Minbari history, but he was somewhat surprised at how many details had been…glossed over…in the available texts. Sinclair had understood that pre-Valen Minbar had been a messy place of dynastic warrior-clan feuds threatening to overtake society, religious clans trying to bring some type of order to society, workers toiling in the background almost like slaves.

The history books – largely written by the religious caste – had not given Sinclair an appreciation for what Valen had been up against. Or rather, what _he_ would be up against.

The warrior-clan “feuds” had been more like small wars where casualties weren’t confined to the warriors. Neither side seemed to care much about the worker clans, even though the workers made Minbari society possible. The warriors did next to nothing to maintain the weaponry they used – or anything else, for that matter, Sinclair noticed with disdain. The religious clan members were fully capable of wasting away to nothing and not even realizing they were hungry, but they were just as likely to not notice anyone else was hungry.

It was also among the worker clans that he had the first experience of meeting a soul he recognized. Sinclair was well aware of the Minbari belief in souls being reborn and had been hoping for Garibaldi or Delenn or Susan Ivanova – a soul he knew he could trust in this strange land – but it had been Inesval’s soul who he met first. Inesval, a worker caste Minbari who had become one of the first Rangers drawn from the worker caste, who had done Ambassador Sinclair a simple favor, had gone on to become a steady addition to the Rangers.

Inesval’s soul in the body of a worker caste Minbari named Ivensal, the first member of that caste to dare to speak to Valen, the mysterious Minbari who brought the miracle base. The warriors had been almost happy and excited by the powers of the station, but the muttering had begun when the station began experiencing issues. There was seemingly no word for “maintenance” in the warrior-caste dialect. Their primary weapon was the fearsome pike. Caring for them involved lengthy and meditative polishing and sharpening processes, nothing as mundane as cleaning or maintenance. 

Sinclair had tried to explain and to show the warriors what needed to be done, tried to emphasize the needfulness of these simple and repetitive tasks. He had tried to enlist the help of the religious clans, but there had been a great deal of studying and not a lot of doing. Zathras was helpful, but there was only one of him. Sinclair had taken to doing what he could, but he knew it was a losing cause. He hadn’t brought this station back in time just to see it fail for lack of a maintenance tech.

One night, while going to work on a weapons platform, he had discovered Ivensal there already, hard at work with a welder’s torch in his hand. Sinclair was put in mind of his first meeting with Inesval, when he had realized that the welder could help him with one of his perennial problems on Minbar – the slanting beds. He was soon to learn that Ivensal could fill that same role. It was refreshing to meet a Minbari who didn’t simply sit in awe of him while ignoring his practical requests.

“What are you doing?” Sinclair asked after a moment.

Ivensal turned off the torch, and looked up at Sinclair. “I was making some slight changes to improve ease of maintenance. I have been studying the system, and believe that this will allow for smoother operation when there are limited personnel to keep it running.”

Sinclair examined the work and was relieved to find that it would simplify operations. “How long have you been studying it?”

“Since you brought the Great Station to us. Zathras has been kind enough to demonstrate its workings to me.” Ivensal spoke mildly but Sinclair was impressed. Zathras was a good judge of character. And Ivensal was a breath of fresh air.

Later, when he formed the Grey Council, Ivensal was one of the three worker caste members he selected. In his previous life, Sinclair had felt that if Valen had come back and seen what became of Minbar, he would have rolled up his sleeves and gotten back to work.

He hadn’t known then what he knew now, hadn’t known that he was viewing the impact of nine hundred years’ worth of “honor” (or entropy, he thought to himself) on the work he had done.

He could only roll up his sleeves and try again.

Under it all, under the fighting and decreeing and working, he waited for Catherine. 

*** 

It was not until after the victory in the Great War that he found her again. In a strange way, it was both the best and worst time for her to appear. 

The best, because he had capital to burn if he needed.

The worst, because an itchy trigger finger almost destroyed her ship.

He’d grown used to his new form, had almost forgotten that he had ever looked different, had almost stopped looking for Jeffrey Sinclair in his mirror. But he’d never stopped being Jeffrey Sinclair under Valen’s mantle.

He was sitting beside her bed in the infirmary when she woke. 

She addressed him in religious caste Minbari, but stopped and stared as he spoke her name. 

“Jeff?” It was his voice, the voice she would know anywhere, and as she looked closer, his eyes. But the rest of him was…Minbari. “What is going on? Where am I?”

He took her hand. “It’s a long story. You might not believe it at first. But I’ve been waiting to find you again, Catherine.”

As he started to tell her the story, he flashed back to his quarters on Babylon 5, and her saucy question - "Which are you, an idle king, doling unequal laws unto a savage race, that hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not you, or a gray spirit, yearning in desire, to follow knowledge like a sinking star?"

He still didn’t know. But at this moment, now that he had found Catherine, he didn’t care.

Valen – and Minbar – could damned well wait for a night. Jeffrey Sinclair deserved that much time and space with the woman he loved before anything – everything – else intruded.

He had earned a tiny bit of delight.

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I'd like you to know that while watching episodes for research, I converted my daughter into a Babylon 5 fan and we're on Season 2.
> 
> Oh no you made me watch B5 and read B5! The horrors.
> 
> I did work _Sorrows_ in, along with some worldbuilding and angst and Sinclair so I hope you enjoy it!


End file.
